Canon PowerShot SX520 HS review

42x optical zoom available with Digic 4+ processor

Canon PowerShot 520HS
The PowerShot SX520HS has a 42x optical zoom

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Canon Powershot SX520HS

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Colours are bright and punchy directly from the camera.

Canon Powershot SX520HS

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Automatic white balance does an excellent job of reproducing accurate colours when faced with mixed or artificial lighting.

Canon Powershot SX520HS

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Use the dedicated macro mode to get closer to the subject to produce frame-filling images.

Canon Powershot SX520HS

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Blues and greens display a beautiful vibrancy, which can be boosted by choosing a different selections from MyColors.

Canon Powershot SX520HS

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A good impression of detail is presented at normal sharing and web sizes, but if you examine at 100% you'll see some evidence of image smoothing.

Canon Powershot SX520HS

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At ISO 1600, there's a loss of detail, and noise is starting to creep in.

Canon Powershot SX520HS

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Another example of where shooting at a high sensitivity has resulted in significant loss of detail.

Canon Powershot SX520HS

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Images directly from the SX520 depict the typical Canon level of warm saturation and vibrant colours.

Canon Powershot SX520HS

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The camera's automatic metering system has coped well here to produce a well balanced exposure.

Zoom range

Canon Powershot SX520HS

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The wide angle of the camera gives an equivalent of 24mm, making it ideal for capturing sweeping vistas.

Canon Powershot SX520HS

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At 1008mm, the houses in this scene at the far end of the telephoto optic are barely visible in the wide angle of the scene, showing just how far the reach is.

Canon Powershot SX520HS

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If you need to get even closer, then the 84x Zoom Plus option is available - while the image quality isn't quite as good as the optical zoom, it's decent.

Canon Powershot SX520HS

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Finally, the full digital zoom allows you to get even closer should you need it.

Creative mode

Here's an example of how the SX520 might render different images when shooting in Creative Mode - the first image is the scene without any filter.

Canon Powershot SX520HS

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Canon Powershot SX520HS

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Canon Powershot SX520HS

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Canon Powershot SX520HS

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Canon Powershot SX520HS

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Canon Powershot SX520HS

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Digital filters

Canon Powershot SX520HS

Fish-eye

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Canon Powershot SX520HS

Miniature

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Toy Camera

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Canon Powershot SX520HS

Monochrome

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Canon Powershot SX520HS

Super Vivid

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Canon Powershot SX520HS

Poster

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Amy Davies

Amy has been writing about cameras, photography and associated tech since 2009. Amy was once part of the photography testing team for Future Publishing working across TechRadar, Digital Camera, PhotoPlus, N Photo and Photography Week. For her photography, she has won awards and has been exhibited. She often partakes in unusual projects - including one intense year where she used a different camera every single day. Amy is currently the Features Editor at Amateur Photographer magazine, and in her increasingly little spare time works across a number of high-profile publications including Wired, Stuff, Digital Camera World, Expert Reviews, and just a little off-tangent, PetsRadar.